In Depth

Next Year's Hot Security Tools

Today's pain points are tomorrow's vendor opportunities

By Simson Garfinkel

Although biometrics and single sign-on systems are sure to see increased sales in the coming year, I don't expect them to be a potent force for most companies. On the other hand, I expect password synchronization systems to make significant inroads. Those systems ease the pain for workers who need to use multiple computers and yet also need to change their passwords on a regular basis to ensure security. Synchronization is a compromise solution, but it's a solution that seems to work.

Finally, I don't expect much breakthrough progress on the encryption front. With the exception of SSL (secure sockets layer), which is both easy to deploy and absolutely vital for securing e-mail delivery, Web transaction and the like, encryption systems are simply too hard to use. That's sad, because file encryption is one of the few ways to minimize the damage that can be caused by a laptop theft. But experience has shown that people protect themselves only against threats that they think are likely, and most people don't expect that their laptop will ever be stolen or misplaced.

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